1. Field of Invention
The present invention relates to a method and an apparatus for joining separated blocks of dough, and for supplying a continuous sheet of dough formed from the joined dough blocks. In particular, the present invention relates to a method and apparatus for joining a first kneaded dough block to a subsequently-provided kneaded dough block such that the gel structures of the dough blocks are integrally joined to form a continuous dough sheet on a production line.
2. Prior Art
In a conventional apparatus, a plurality of dough sheets are formed by pressing individual kneaded dough blocks, and then portions of each dough sheet are cut away to produce, for example, bread products. Each dough sheet has a volume corresponding to the volume of the kneaded dough block from which it was formed. The entire dough sheet is used in one production lot, or each part of the dough sheet is used in a production lot. When one dough sheet is used in a production lot, production time is lost between the adjacent dough sheets when they are fed by a conveyor. Also, fragments which remain after portions of the dough sheet are cut away are not used during production.
In a conventional apparatus, if necessary, adjacent dough sheets are joined to each other by a manual operation. That is, a rear end of a dough sheet is piled on a front end of a subsequently-formed dough sheet, and then the piled ends are manually pressed such that they adhere to each other. There is no apparatus to perform this sheet joining operation. Thus, the operation must be manually performed whenever a gap appears between sequentially-formed dough sheets, so that a significant amount of manual labor is needed to perform the joining operation. In bread production lines, unmanned production is usually performed to make bread from dough sheets that have the same conditions in their degree of composition and kneading, because technology to make a thin dough sheet has been improved and is now broadly used. However, when many kinds of breads that have several shapes and additional ingredients, such as fillings, are made on the same production line, much manual work is needed to join sequentially-formed dough sheets.
A gel structure is formed in a dough mass during a mixing operation. When the dough mass is cut to form individual dough blocks, the gel structure of each dough block is separated from the dough mass and from all previously-formed dough blocks. Thus, in order to join two separated dough blocks, it is necessary to join their gel structures. Currently, there is no apparatus for automatically joining the gel structures of two dough blocks.